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October 15, 2006

Barrel Preparation

So in order to take my winemaking the whole way, I decided to purchase two different kinds of barrels to evaluate any differences between French and Hungarian barrels. Since this was kind of a last minute decision, the supply house was out of the sizes I wanted, so I settled for a 20-gallon French and a 12.7-gallon Hungarian. Since the optimum barrel size is around 50-gallons, smaller barrels tend to introduce too much oak character due to the larger surface-to-volume ratio of wood to wine. So the supply house recommends prepping the barrel with a solution of barolkleen, which extracts excess tannins from the oak to allow a more controlled aging process. Otherwise the wine can taste like sawdust in a matter of weeks - not cool.

Posted by Stephen at October 15, 2006 10:33 PM